In an increasingly connected world, what other people think about your goods and services really matters to customers who are considering making a purchase from you. While it might be tempting not to hear any negativity about your business, you may find that not listening or reacting has a very negative impact on your bottom line. While the marketing mix has always consisted of price, place, promotion, product and people, there’s surely an R for reviews to slot in somewhere.
Whether you encourage people to leave reviews or not, they will do so and they are more likely to leave negative ones unless you elicit positive ones from them. That is human nature. People are more likely to tell others when something has gone badly than when something has gone well. Even a bad review can be turned into a positive one if you use it to improve your customer service and be seen to do so. Reviews are a window onto the world for your business and an opportunity for the general public to get a feel of your proposition without having to commit to a purchase. Reviews are a key part of how your brand is perceived
There are many different types of reviews that people can be able to leave about your enterprise. A site like Glassdoor, for example, allows your employees to tell potential recruits what it is like to work in your business and even what you are like as a boss. Reviews like these will be invaluable if you are recruiting in a market where demand outstrips supply. You want to stand out as being a great place to work.
Trip Advisor has been around for many years now and has caused some hospitality venues to wonder whether negative reviews about their establishment had been unfairly placed by jealous competitors. Trip Advisor has gone a long way to counteract any fraudulent reviews that have been placed. You can use Trip Advisor to build your business’s reputation by claiming your business on there, putting up your own photos and writing an accurate description so that customers expectations are in line with what you are offering. You should then see realistic reviews being posted that you can include in your own marketing and social media posts.
The online gambling industry is one that has really embraced the importance of reviews and feedback. There is a plethora of independent sites that compare different casino and sportsbook offerings. Rather than going to all the individual casino sites, punters can go to one place to find the best online casinos which have been independently reviewed based on an extensive number of factors. In turn, these reviews from a trusted third party can be used to build traffic to the casino sites via internal links between the sites and the reviews that appear on the casino site’s home page.
By asking for a Trust Pilot or Google Review, many businesses allow themselves to take control of the process by sending the customer a link or email after purchase, with questions tailored to their specific business. The more people who are questioned, the more reviews will be published. The more published reviews there are, the more trust is established in the business. Reviews form a perfect ‘virtuous’ circle and feedback loop.
The key point with all these reviews that you are gathering is to show them off. Make sure that they are visible on your website and that your feedback to any negative ones is polite and professional. You can display them on your social media accounts as well as your own website. You can use positive reviews as a reason to create a post on social media. If you have feedback that you are particularly proud of, let your followers know about it. You might even be able to use it as a base for a press release and gain traditional media coverage without paying for advertising.
